


sheweth his handywork

by TomBowline



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: First Time, Hand Jobs, John Irving’s Giant Shame Cock, M/M, Power Dynamics, Rebound Sex, Sexual Inexperience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:06:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29314548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomBowline/pseuds/TomBowline
Summary: In the long weeks since his sea-marriage to Mr Hickey had ended, Billy had come to dread seeing to Lieutenant Irving.Fill for day four of Rarepair Week, “You astonish me”.
Relationships: William Gibson (1823-c.1848)/John Irving (1815-c.1848)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	sheweth his handywork

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Psalm 19.1, KJV.

In the long weeks since his sea-marriage to Mr Hickey had ended, Billy had come to dread seeing to Lieutenant Irving. 

The lieutenant had assured him that he was forgiven, that he would not be punished - yet it was easy to see that whatever general absolution Irving had assigned him, he did not personally care to be dressed and groomed by a sodomite. Each morning he would gasp and shy away from Billy’s touch; each night he would be tense and pale-faced beneath Billy’s hands. It made Billy feel a pang of regret each time - not for who he was or what he did, but for indulging himself in such a way as could endanger his career. It was terribly foolish, and now he was paying for it: who could say, after all, that one too many scandalous brushes of Billy’s fingers upon Irving’s neck as he adjusted the lieutenant’s stock would not make him change his mind and report Billy to the captain? And even if he did not, how was he to expect a decent reference from a man who could not bear to be handled well enough to let Billy do his job?

This particular morning was looking like it would be little better. Irving was already dressed in his trousers and undershirt when Billy came in, as had become usual; he handed over his nightshirt, folded into a crumpled wad as if to punish Billy still further by abusing the clothing he was tasked with looking after, and averted his gaze pointedly as he stood awaiting a full dressing.

Billy made no attempt to bar himself from feeling sour as he set to work. He had a naturally serious face, sharpened to immobility by a life of service, which he knew would disguise all but the foulest of moods. So as he moved meticulously about the lieutenant, avoiding any impertinent brush of leg of elbow against the taut form before him, he let himself feel very sour indeed. 

He cursed himself and Hickey and Irving and the whole blasted situation by turns as he set the stock into place with fingertips, pulled the cravat tight with his nails, straightened the cuffs between thumb and rigid forefinger. It was insupportable, he thought as he did his best to straighten the collar without touching the skin beneath. It was a dreadful drain, he thought as he undid the trousers to tuck in the shirt. It was—

Hard beneath his fingers, hot and firm and of a shocking length.

He felt his head come up whip-quick without his bidding to stare at Irving, showing on his face he knew not what. The lieutenant was scarlet, his eyes squeezed shut, his brow knit like a penitent statue, his mouth just the slightest bit open. 

He looked back down again as if to confirm what he had felt: and yes, there it was, there was Lieutenant Irving’s prick reaching up from his flies like a mainmast, barely obscured by the white cotton of his smalls. He had to choke back a laugh for the absurdity of it: this man, with such a yard, with such a horror for pleasure. The boards of Billy’s world were abruptly and giddily reordered: it was not Billy the lieutenant was afraid of, but himself. 

With one ever-so-delicate hand, Billy swept up Irving’s thigh, just shy of where he was (he suspected) wanted most. With the other, he cupped Irving’s neck (jolting out a shocked little inhale from him) and brought him close, close enough to lip and whisper into his ear: “Is that it, then? You should have told me, Lieutenant.”

“Oh!” Irving gasped and shivered for one long melting moment, seemed surely agreeable, but in the next moment he pulled away, tensing suddenly in Billy’s arms. Billy had to bite back on an aggrieved little groan. “I’m a wicked man, I am— so very sorry. I mustn’t.”

Billy cleared his throat delicately; cupped Irving’s cheek in his hand to meet his eye. His fingertips, he noted, reached all the way up to the lieutenant’s pinched brow. “It is not so very wicked,” he murmured, coming in close again, “to desire another man.”

Irving groaned. “Yes— I— You are my  _ subordinate, _ ” he choked out. “My  _ steward. _ It is wicked to abuse one’s rank, Mister Gibson.”

“That is not what this is,” he whispered, trying to sound sweet and earnest.  _ Not all of what this is, _ he amended in his mind. It was true that he considered this passion as a sort of insurance against the loss of his career, but more than that he was lonely and longed once again to have a sweet voice in his ear and a man’s whiskers on his skin. If this was taking advantage, the fault fell on both sides; and if it was that, it was also the simple seeking of connection. He stroked Irving’s cheek with his thumb, felt the skin flushed hot and the bones beneath it nearly quivering. “I wonder if you would call me Billy?”

With the skin of his wrist he felt the contracting jolt when Irving swallowed. At this distance Billy could not see the man’s face in great focus, but he looked as if he might weep. Finally, using barely the noise of a breath: “Alright, Billy.”

The lieutenant’s lips were slack and tense at once on Billy’s own, endearingly ill at ease: shivering at the feel of Billy’s whiskers, jumping at the touch of Billy’s tongue. He seemed to need coaxing into every little move at first, uncertain where to put his hands and mouth and legs. Billy was not so used to leading, as it were, but he had had enough experience being handled by all manner of men to know what felt good, and he plied this knowledge now with a sure hand slipping into Irving’s shirt to lay over his breast, another stroking his flank like a coachman calming a horse, a leg between both of Irving’s to be squeezed upon by his soft sturdy thighs and rutted into in timid little bursts. 

But soon enough he seemed to learn the game (he must have been this way himself once, Billy mused, grasping covetously for more once he got his first taste). The lieutenant’s hands were on his upper arms, clutching for dear life; the lieutenant’s mouth was sucking on the corner-dip of his neck, nose tucked in as if to hide there, huffing little breaths in and shuddering at the unremarkable smell of soap and sweat. It was only with difficulty that he extracted himself enough to slip a hand into Irving’s trousers and smalls - nimbly undoing the ties, for after all, he’d had two years of practice at this - and grasp his prick.

When he got a hand round Irving at last, the man gasped and cried out as if he’d been struck. Billy pressed a  _ shh, shh _ into the top of the lieutenant’s head, making his hand loose and his strokes almost lackadaisical - though it was difficult indeed to hold back, knowing what he was working with. He’d seen the absurd line of it earlier, when he still believed himself in danger of a disrate or worse, but having the thing in his own hand was a special kind of confirmation. No icy desert mirage, this great pillar of lust, or it would not be attached to such a difficult man; no, it was real, and leaking into Billy’s hand with wild abandon as its owner twitched and whined. 

Billy wondered, as he rubbed the lieutenant’s foreskin over the wet pink head of him, whether it would fit up his arse; wondered, then again, whether Irving would even let him try. Another time, he thought, dripping spittle down into his hand and applying it with fervor, if there was indeed to be such an occasion. For now he would content himself with sliding his other hand in to map the lieutenant’s thick base and twitching stones as he stripped him off with gentle expertise. And it was quite rewarding, in its own way - there was no direct physical pleasure to be gained of it, but Irving was shaking and thrusting up into his grasp and making the sweetest little hurt-sounding noises into his shoulder, and that was gratifying enough to see Billy through to his turn. (It might occur to him to worry for a lack of reciprocation, even a lashing out, with a man so ashamed and folded-up as this, only the way the lieutenant clutched and nipped and rubbed at Billy’s body like a stray cat in midwinter given a warm bed of blankets told him clear as day that Irving would be the insatiable sort.)

It was over quickly enough, anyway, too quickly for Billy’s liking - he had had a fleeting idea of folding down onto his knees to tongue at Irving’s flushed and streaming head, to taste the silk-soft skin that would be pulled taut in eager desire, but before he had a chance to indulge this thought the lieutenant’s cupped bollocks were drawing up tense and his tool was spilling hot and copious between shaking legs. 

Caught off-guard, Billy fumbled to swipe up Irving’s spend into his hand and dispense it into a handkerchief. With another man, he might have cursed him for the lack of warning, but the idea of doing so with Irving was laughable in an anxious sort of way - he could only imagine what would result, the haughtiness of an officer or the blubbering of a new-minted sodomite. So he folded his kerchief quietly and drew it over Irving’s shrinking prick (which produced another curious sound, another wounded little groan) before stowing it in his back pocket for the laundry-pile. 

While he was about this business, Irving was shuffling clumsily about to do— what? Tucking himself away, doing up his flies, and sinking, ah, sinking down to his knees. Billy had to suppress a thin smile: he had taken the measure of this man perfectly. Inch, mile, et cetera. 

“You’ve not done this before, Lieutenant?” Irving only stared at him with a faint air of affront, which was answer enough. Right then. 

“You don’t want to do that your first time,” he told him, tapping his cheek and bringing him up by the arm so they were once again belly-to-belly in the little cabin. He clutched Irving’s wrist and moved that dainty hand with its orderly little calluses toward his own flies as gently as he would guide a needle through a coat’s silk lining. “Try this. Just as you’d do for yourself, hmm?” 

Irving undid Billy’s flies, slipped his hand in to clasp his prick, and— stopped moving. Cast his eyes down, brow drawn once again. “I don’t,” he began. “I try not to.” 

Christ, alright. “With me, then, Lieutenant,” he said, trying to project calm and patience. He set his own hand over Irving’s and, with some positioning of the wrist, guided him into a firm stroking motion. The lieutenant’s calluses played pleasing havoc on Billy’s prick, harsh and familiar and almost enough to make him forget how smooth a hand he had been treated to these past months. Almost, for the lieutenant’s grasping and unsteady rhythm still managed, when it was not coaxing surprised little breaths from him in its better moments, to bring up nostalgia for a certain more practiced partner. 

In defiance of this ill-fated wish Billy kept his eyes open and stared - took in the nails he clipped and cleaned himself once a week as they collected his essential fluid underneath them, watched the face whose whiskers he kept in good order as it put tongue between dainty little teeth and soft pink lips in concentration, catalogued the flashing of Irving’s hazel eyes and the muted blush on his cheeks and the fine dragging wool of his sleeve as he pulled on Billy’s cock with an unpracticed eagerness. It was a startlingly dear sight - perhaps only because he was so familiar with it, but it was dear nonetheless. 

If Irving had gone off like a shot, this was for all its ardency rather more in the way of wet gunpowder. Billy found himself rubbing up into the lieutenant’s clumsy palm to chase his pleasure, grabbing for his hand again to mold it into a more expedient shape. And here, yes, that was better - he told Irving so, only he said “That’s good,” to soften it, and Irving gasped and  _ convulsed _ against him, squirming like he hadn’t just spent. 

“You’re doing well,” he went on, aiming once more for intimate earnestness. He set his cheek against Irving’s brow and half-kissed him there as he went on, “You’re a quick study. Lovely steady hands.” Irving’s hands - both of them, now, like Billy’d done for him, only there was nothing in Billy’s length that suggested the necessity and it was instead all a bit cramped - twitched upon him and redoubled their efforts, and something must have shifted in the midst of it because yes, yes, now they were getting somewhere. Now the alchemy of lust was jerking Irving’s hand into a shocking little dance of pleasure on Billy’s prick, now the feel of Irving’s sweat-slick hand upon his sack had turned from strange to pleasantly engulfing, now, now, now. 

With Cornelius Billy would often try to hold back from spending as long as he could; he found it increased one’s eventual pleasure, to wince away from it at first that way. Here, now, afraid for how much time might pass before Irving would bring him back to the precipice, Billy didn’t try to fight it. He came like something was being ripped out of him, with a bitten lip and a silent shudder. 

After a terribly short moment, a soft “Oh!” from Irving made him once again aware of other things besides his cock and what was issuing from it. The lieutenant was fumbling for a kerchief - he truly was a quick study - and dripping all upon floorboards and uniform in his haste. With a huff of a tut of a sound Billy caught Irving’s wrists in his own slender hands and made to wipe the man clean with his own soiled handkerchief. He focused on the hands he was cleaning rather than the man to whom they belonged: pink from use, trembling at the fingertips, warm and yielding where they were not sailor-rough. An urge arose, absurd, to kiss them; he put it carefully aside. 

Now came the trick: to end it delicately, to bite the thread and leave a tail, to close the door but not to lock it. Billy swept his hand back up Irving’s trunk - just barely touching, never wishing to impose - and smoothed his collar, buttoned his shirt, straightened his waistcoat. Laid his hair nicely back across his brow, nothing out of place, slipping back from lover to steward in a clear delineated diminishment. There, now, he thought, looking over the man before him. All is as it should be once again. 

Irving looked about to speak, about to choke out some awkward god-knows-what, so Billy cut in smoothly: “Will you be needing your scarf and wig today, Lieutenant?” 

“I—” His lips pursed, his brow knit, delightfully caught-off-guard. “No, no. I’ll come back to dress when it’s my watch.” 

“Very good, sir.” Billy turned to leave, turned again. “Perhaps I ought to come and assist you, when the time comes?” 

“If—” Irving looked slightly faint. He was taking on that vacant look that Billy had seen before, when a man was asked a question by his superior and knew not what he ought to say. It was the same, that look, on officers and stewards. “If you, if you like.”

“Very good, sir. Only say the word.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was gonna have an earlier, Irving-POV chapter charting his Persistent and Indecent thoughts about Billy following his discovery, but I was feeling wildly uninspired to write it. May add it later if the mood takes me.


End file.
